Sign-In
Cart
From Sugar Camps to Star Barns: Rural Life and Landscape in a Western Pennsylvania Community
Paperback
General SociologyGeneral World HistoryRegional: Middle Atlantic
ISBN13: 9780271021089
Publisher: Penn St Univ Pr
Published: Sep 20 2001
Pages: 200
Weight: 1.20
Height: 0.59 Width: 8.54 Depth: 10.52
Language: English
Rural Pennsylvania's landscapes are evocative, richly textured testimonies to the lives and skills of generations of builders--architects as well as local builders and craft workers. Farmhouses and barns, silos and fences, even field patterns attest to how residents over the years have had a sense of place that was not only functional but also comfortable and aesthetically appropriate for the time. From Sugar Camps to Star Barns tells the story of one such place, a landscape that evolved in southwestern Pennsylvania's Somerset County.
Sally McMurry traces the rural life and landscape of Somerset County as it evolved from the earliest settlement days. Eighteenth-century residents were a forest people, living on sparsely built farmsteads and making free use of the heavily forested landscape. The makeshift sugar camp typified their hardscrabble lives. In the nineteenth century, the people of this area turned to farming. Prompted by the ''market revolution'' that had come to Somerset County, they pursued a highly varied agriculture, combining a subsistence base with robust production of commodities shipped to distant cities. Their landscape reflected this combination of the local and the cosmopolitan--a combination that reached its full expression in the distinctive two-story banked farmhouse with double-decker porch, flanked by a substantial Pennsylvania barn.
The twentieth century brought a more industrialized agriculture to Somerset County. But the shift to profit-and-loss farming also meant the accentuation of landscape elements specific to market products. The magnificent ''star barns'' of this era overshadowed the houses, and ancillary structures, such as ''peepy houses'' and silos, spoke to the pressures of efficiency and mass production. The subsequent rise of coal mining helped to stimulate this trend, both by supplying local markets and by creating an incentive for farmers to visually distinguish their landscapes from those of the coal-patch towns.
Illustrated with over 100 photographs, maps, drawings, and diagrams, From Sugar Camps to Star Barns demonstrates how much we can learn about the economy and culture of a particular place simply by being attentive to the built landscape.
Also in
Regional: Middle Atlantic
A Light in Dark Times: The New School for Social Research and Its University in Exile
Friedlander, Judith
Paperback
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital
Musgrove, George Derek
Asch, Chris Myers
Paperback
History Hiding Around Broadway: Backstage Lore, Secrets & Surprises from New York's Famed Theater District
Dvornik, Teale
Hardcover
The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars
Collins, Paul
Paperback
Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball
Epplin, Luke
Hardcover
Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale
Rhodes, Marissa C.
Earls, Averill
Handley-Cousins, Sarah
Hardcover
Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America
Shorto, Russell
Paperback
The Only Plane in the Sky (Revised and Expanded Edition for the 25th Anniversary): An Oral History of 9/11
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America
Shorto, Russell
Hardcover
First Adirondackers: 12,000 Years of Indigenous Peoples in the Adirondack Uplands
Stager, Curt
Fadden, David Kanietakeron
Paperback
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
Blum, Deborah
Paperback
Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York: From the Suppressed to the Strange
Goldman, Jonathan Ezra
Paperback
The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware
O'Donnell, Patrick K.
Paperback
George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution
Kilmeade, Brian
Yaeger, Don
Paperback
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
Shorto, Russell
Paperback
Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America
Gross, Kali Nicole
Paperback
Spooky Pennsylvania: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore
Schlosser, S. E.
Paperback
The Worst Day: A Plane Crash, a Train Wreck, and Remarkable Acts of Heroism in Washington, DC
Goldfarb, Bruce
Paperback
The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy
Moore, Robin
Paperback
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City
Mahler, Jonathan
Paperback
We're Not Leaving: 9/11 Responders Tell Their Stories of Courage, Sacrifice, and Renewal
Luft, Benjamin J.
Paperback
Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation
Cannell, Michael
Hardcover
All Roads Lead to Hastings-on-Hudson: A History of the Lower Hudson River Valley and New York City
Lillard, Jonathan Foster
Paperback
Into the Night: A Jailbreak and Double Homicide on Maryland's Eastern Shore
Fowler, Stephanie L.
Paperback
The Maid and the Socialite: The Brave Women Behind Green Bay's Scandalous Minahan Trials
Drews, Lynda
Paperback
More Punk Than the Public Library: The Adventures of a Little Free Punk Rock Bookstore
Bennett, J. Hunter
Paperback
Cycling the Erie Canal: A Guide to 360 Miles of Adventure and History Along the Erie Canalway Trail
Parks & Trails New York
Paperback
A Monument of Charity: St. Vincent's Hospital and Catholic Health Care in New York City
Rzeznik, Thomas F.
Hardcover
Pepperpot City: Philadelphia and the Foundation of American Cuisine, an Illustrated History
Weaver, William Woys
Hardcover
The Sewards of New York: A Biography of a Leading American Political Family
Slaughter, Thomas P.
Hardcover
Forty-Four Years, the Life of a Hunter: Being Reminiscences of Meshach Browning, a Maryland Hunter and Trapper
Browning, Meshach
Paperback
The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years: A Mostly Chronological and Occasionally Personal History
Levine, David
Paperback
A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family
Bruno, Debra
Hardcover
A Century of Music Under the Stars: A History of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts and Robin Hood Dell
The Mann Center for the Performing Arts
McCarthy, Jack
Hardcover
They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History
Coffey, Wayne
Paperback
The Mayor: One Poor City's Fight to Bring Back Government and Save the Nation's Soul
Alexander, Brian
Hardcover
150 Years of Racing in Saratoga: Little-Known Stories & Facts from America's Most Historic Racing City
Carter, Allan
Kane, Mike
Hardcover
Georgetown's Retail Past: Generations of Shops and Restaurants in One of America's Great Historic Neighborhoods
Peters, Kenneth G.
Paperback
The Bowery Boys: Adventures in Old New York: Historic Streets, Hidden Spots, and Iconic Neighborhoods in Manhattan
Meyers, Tom
Young, Greg
Paperback
Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York
Hortis, C. Alexander
Hardcover
The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution
Taylor, Alan
Paperback
Into the Night: A Jailbreak and Double Homicide on Maryland's Eastern Shore
Fowler, Stephanie L.
Hardcover
Cornell '77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall
Conners, Peter
Hardcover
The Water Carriers: A Journey Through Cherokee History and the Secret Life of Rivers
Smithers, Gregory D.
Hardcover
Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice Since the 1960s
Freudenberg, Nicholas
Paperback
Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation
Cannell, Michael
Paperback
The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty
Hogeland, William
Paperback
Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities That Shaped a Borough
Kanakamedala, Prithi
Hardcover
The Big Book of New Jersey Ghost Stories
Stansfield, Charles A., Jr.
Martinelli, Patricia A.
Paperback
Queen of Bohemia Predicts Own Death: Gilded-Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris
Kahn, Eve M.
Hardcover
Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital
Oshinsky, David
Paperback
97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
Ziegelman, Jane
Paperback
Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience: How Black Washingtonians Used Music and Sports in the Fight for Equality
Jackson, Maurice
Hardcover
A Lady in the Lake: The True Story of Death and Discovery in Lake Placid
Ortloff, George Christian
Paperback
City Tavern: The Founding Table--Colonial Dining, Revolutionary History, and the Restaurant at the Center of It All
Diamond, Becky Libourel
Paperback
Battles at Annapolis: Two Remarkable Football Games in the Army-Navy Rivalry
Gendell, David
Paperback
The Rising Generation: Gradual Abolition, Black Legal Culture, and the Making of National Freedom
Gronningsater, Sarah L. H.
Paperback
111 Places in Women's History in Washington DC That You Must Not Miss
Grawl, Rebecca
Calogera, Kaitlin
Paperback
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
Most, Doug
Paperback
Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs
Kadinsky, Sergey
Paperback
The Ancient House: Constructing Community in the Seventeenth-Century New York Borderlands
Kramer, Erin B.
Paperback
Upstaters: Poets, Pols, Prophets, and Bush-League Heroes of Upstate New York
Kauffman, Bill
Paperback
Ring the Bell: How the Philadelphia Phillies Built Baseball's Best Fan Base
Reavy, Kevin
Fritz, Jack
Hardcover
Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park
Mulvihill, Andy
Rossen, Jake
Paperback
Nights in Fairyland: Gossip, Blackmail, and the Many Lives of "Broadway Brevities"
Straw, Will
Paperback
Spooky New Jersey: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore
Schlosser, S. E.
Paperback
Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in Poughkeepsie
Griffen, Clyde
Flad, Harvey K.
Paperback